


Cortège Hongrois

by numberdance



Series: Balanchine and Barton [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Avengers (2012), What Happened in Budapest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 16:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13080774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numberdance/pseuds/numberdance
Summary: Dancers couldn't fly, but that's not why today was so different from Budapest.





	Cortège Hongrois

Here's the thing. What Clint remembers from Budapest? Is an AIM operation hidden within a folk dance ensemble and a ballet company. Dancers are pretty different from aliens, Natasha, just saying. (Of all people, you'd think Nat would recognize that.) She's right about the chaos, though, and the shear numbers. There is something Budapest-like about that.

But again, dancers versus aliens, and the dancers couldn't fly.

There's some other difference niggling at the back of Clint's mind, something that he knows is key but that he can't place yet. He doesn't have time to push on it, not in the middle of the battle.

Later, he wonders if it wasn't denial that kept him from the realization. Clint learned to compartmentalize years ago. It doesn't hit him, or doesn't sink in, whichever it is, until after shawarma, when he's walking to his apartment and Nat is... following, he supposes. He hasn't asked. He stops, and she stops, and he turns toward her. "Not like Budapest at all," he says, because in Budapest he never once lost Coulson's voice in his ear.

Natasha looks at Clint for another moment then nods.

When they reach his apartment, Clint pauses, key in the door but not turned yet. "Were you going to tell me?"

"You knew already." Her voice is low, gentler than normal.

"I need to hear it, Nat," Clint says, and he lets them in without looking at her, stalks towards the couch.

"Fury said the paramedics called it."

Her words stop Clint short, and he turns, looks at her like she looked at him before. "Say that again."

Natasha rolls one wrist and says, "Fury said the paramedics called it." And now Clint sees it, the sorrow and anger and distrust and the seed of hope. She's letting him read all of it, but she knows he needs it. Natasha purses her lips and then adds, "But you're right. That's enough to make it different from Budapest."


End file.
